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A CFMEU insider turned whistleblower has alleged the union forced him to cover up a crime and stymie a police investigation in return for a job on major public infrastructure projects.
Charles Farrugia, a former CFMEU representative on the Allan government’s signature Big Build program, has made a series of damning claims about corruption and intimidation within the union, alleging state- and federal-funded jobs have been abused and traded by the union with impunity.
He also claimed the current leadership of the CFMEU has failed to adequately combat the cover-up and nepotistic culture within the union’s most powerful branch, Victoria – behaviour which the Albanese government pledged to stamp out 15 months ago when it appointed administrator Mark Irving, KC, to run the union.
Charles and Helena Farrugia claim they were attacked at home in front of their children.Credit: Alex Coppel
The damaging claims come with the CFMEU administration in the midst of a crisis, having been forced to sack an influential Victorian CFMEU boss it promoted in July after this masthead and 60 Minutes uncovered his involvement in suspected serious bribery and corruption.
In NSW, it can also be revealed that the administration has sacked a newly appointed organiser after this masthead uncovered his involvement in an assault late last year.
The Albanese government now faces growing questions about whether its CFMEU clean-up is working, with the opposition slamming it as a failure and criticism from crossbenchers and unionists. Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth has defended the administration while claiming – inaccurately – it had uncovered the conduct that led to the sacking of Victorian union boss John Perkovic and the NSW organiser when it was, in fact, unearthed by this masthead and 60 Minutes.
Farrugia’s allegations open a fresh front in the rolling Building Bad scandal which plunged the union into administration last August. He makes new claims that the ousted pre-administration union regime in Victoria engaged in serious corruption and what could amount to the offence of perverting the course of justice.
Farrugia also attacked Irving’s administration for inaction, saying it had empowered select union wrongdoers and allowed exiled union boss John Setka to maintain influence in the CFMEU’s most powerful Victorian faction.
Farrugia was appointed by the CFMEU as one of dozens of union delegates on the Big Build in June 2022, having volunteered in union headquarters for months after an injury cut short his 15-year steel-fixing career.
But his path to union whistleblower began on a much smaller building site: his own.
In 2023, his neighbour, a boxer called Lee Bozic, complained about building works in Farrugia’s backyard.
CFMEU delegate Lee Bozic doing a chin up with former union boss John Setka (right). Credit: Facebook
In late December, amid rising tensions, Farrugia alleges Bozic stormed onto Farrugia’s property, attacking him with multiple blows to his face and body as Farrugia’s two young daughters, aged four and six, watched screaming.
Next, Farrugia’s wife Helena was allegedly confronted by Bozic, who declined to respond to questions about the allegations when he was called by this masthead last week.
“I see Lee attacking him [Charles]. He was throwing punches at him, kicking him,” Helena alleged.
“Then Lee approached me. He went down to my eye level, he grabbed me and said, ‘You’re f—ing next’ and pushed me to the floor.
“My little one had wet her pants. She was screaming and crying. She was absolutely petrified. Absolutely terrified. Both of them were. At the time, my youngest was four-and-a-half years old. So, to see her mummy and daddy being bashed in their own backyard, what are you going to do?”
Farrugia responded with an ugly crime. His father, 76, and his two brothers had arrived shortly after the attack to do landscaping. Instead, they sought revenge, with the four Farrugia men brutally attacking Bozic on his property.
Farrugia’s attack was caught on CCTV.Credit: The Age
“I’m not proud of it, and I probably could have gone a different way about it,” Farrugia said when pressed about why he chose to break the law rather than go to the police.
“But at the time, the emotions were high, and I knew that he was not going to stop.”
Farrugia knew something else. Bozic was, like him, a union delegate, albeit with much greater influence: he was a key member of the so-called Croatian faction. The faction is a powerful grouping which, at the time, was headed by union secretary John Setka and the now-sacked CFMEU leader John Perkovic.
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The faction still commands the loyalty of an estimated 120 union delegates.
According to Farrugia, after the attack he was summoned to a cafe to meet two of Setka’s union subordinates and given an order: If he wanted to keep working on Labor government projects, Farrugia had to agree to stymie the police investigation into the initial alleged bashing and assaults by Bozic that provoked Farrugia’s revenge attack.
The alleged demand, if proven, would involve the serious crime of perverting the course of justice.
The union subordinates party to the deal could not be reached for comment and this masthead is not naming them for legal reasons.
There is no suggestion that Setka, Perkovic or Bozic knew of or directed this allegedly corrupt deal, although it is not the first time the union has been accused of suppressing a violent crime.
The bashing in 2020 of two union officials by Albanian developers was also improperly suppressed by the CFMEU, according to a report released last year by administration investigator Geoffrey Watson, SC.
CFMEU delegate Lee Bozic (left).Credit: Facebook
Desperate for work, Farrugia accepted in return for a job on another Allan government Big Build project.
“I had to shut my mouth, keep quiet, and not tell anyone, and if the police were to get involved to make no comment,” he said.
Court records confirm that Farrugia refused to assist police, instead pleading guilty in the Victorian Magistrates’ Court, where he was issued a good behaviour bond and non-conviction. His brothers also pleaded guilty and received the same sentence.
Farrugia claims that after agreeing to stay silent he was given a job, but before long was double-crossed by still serving union insiders aligned with the Croatian faction, who implemented an unofficial ban on Farrugia from Big Build projects.
Farrugia has also alleged he was threatened with violence to stay silent. Again, there is no suggestion by this masthead that Bozic was involved in these threats.
But a tape recording of union officials discussing the Farrugia case confirms that serving senior union organisers separately witnessed intimidation directed towards Farrugia and those supporting him.
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“I had a lot of death threats put towards me,” Farrugia claimed in an interview.
“I was told and advised many times that I was going to be ambushed. My car was going to get burnt. My house was going to get burnt.”
Farrugia’s wife, Helena, alleges she overheard a well known ex-union figure with bikie links warn her husband “the Hells Angels were after us”.
In the months after the Albanese government appointed Irving as administrator to take over the union, and Setka’s old position as union boss was filled by emerging union leader Zach Smith, Farrugia sought to raise his plight with the new union regime and began attending branch meetings to air his grievances.
CCTV obtained by this masthead shows what happened at one meeting earlier this year: Farrugia, who is a short man, is surrounded by several members of the Croatian faction near the union’s entrance.
The vision supports his claims he was surrounded and intimidated, although Bozic’s supporters claim (without evidence) that Farrugia provoked the confrontation.
“I knew if I left that building there I was going to get brutally bashed,” Farrugia said.
“And, you can see [on the CCTV] … they don’t care. It’s in the union office. If they can do that in the union office and not have any fear of getting in trouble, they’re untouchable. They were trying to scare me. Tell me, ‘Keep quiet’.”
Senior union leader Gerry McQuaid is seen on the CCTV shepherding Farrugia into a room to protect him.
In August, McQuaid and Smith met with Farrugia and his wife at a cafe to discuss his concerns.
Helena recorded the meeting on her phone and it records McQuaid acknowledging the earlier Bozic assault of Farrugia and condemning the ongoing efforts by Croatian faction members to ban and intimidate Farrugia.
Smith is also recorded stating to Farrugia: “To be honest with you, I’m not discounting anything you’re saying. But at the end of the day, those matters shouldn’t prevent you from working.
“I’m happy to talk to some of the senior people in the Croatian community too and just say we don’t need and we don’t want anyone, Charlie or anyone, getting set up in the workplace … the commitment is there to get you back on the job.”
On the tape, McQuaid states of the alleged Bozic assault and Farrugia’s revenge attack: “If someone came and attacked me in my house, in front of my family, I would do exactly the same.
“You don’t understand how many organisers think you’re a decent bloke … we know it’s coming from a certain group [that is preventing you working].”
Farrugia said he suspected Smith was ultimately blocked by the Croatian faction, which, at least until Perkovic’s sacking for unrelated suspected corruption this week, is the most powerful grouping in the union, even while it is in administration.
“I believe that he [Smith] knew that it was wrong, what’s happened to me, but he was in a position that he couldn’t help me because there was people above him,” Farrugia said, referring to Smith’s suspected desire to keep the Croatian faction onside for political reasons while simultaneously confronting wrongdoing.
In a statement, Irving said that “numerous matters regarding Charles Farrugia and Lee Bozic were investigated by the administration” and had been referred to police, who recently contacted Farrugia.
In respect of the specific perverting the course of justice, job-for-silence claim, Irving said it, too, was with police and that the union official allegedly responsible was sacked as part of a general union clean out in August 2024 and “cannot now return to the union”.
Smith’s promise to help Farrugia find a job never materialised. Bozic remains a CFMEU delegate.
Despite his repeated emails to the administration and government officials outlining his concerns, Farrugia believes he will never return to the construction industry.
Farrugia hopes his story will lead to a thorough investigation by the administration and is prepared to be criticised for his own conduct, as long as any inquiry examines him as closely as others.
He is still battling the fall-out of his neighbour dispute, with members of the Bozic family pressing for intervention orders and making fresh allegations of intimidation that the Farrugia family is contesting.
An irony of Farrugia’s story is that while he will never again serve the union he once loved, he was one of a likely minority of CFMEU delegates who landed their initial union role the proper way, rather than through nepotism.
Former CFMEU delegate Charles Farrugia on site.
Farrugia volunteered in union headquarters for three months in early 2022 to land his delegate’s job. But, once he began work on the Allan’s government’s Big Build, he witnessed an extraordinary scale of what he calls “cheating”.
Farrugia is open about what no one in the union will publicly admit, even now: for years, the CFMEU secretly and successfully demanded Labor civil infrastructure projects give sweetheart jobs to union bosses’ relatives and mates, along with criminal gang members (Farrugia has never been a bikie and has no criminal record save for a 20-year-old affray charge).
“Look, it’s not really talked about, but usually you’ve got to be related to get a job. If you’ve got a bit of a colourful background, you’re a big name, you’re going to get a job a lot quicker … I believe that everyone knew that’s the way it was going. They looked the other way,” he said of the way Big Build jobs were doled out.
“I wouldn’t say just bikie. If you’ve got a bit of pull behind you, you’re going to get a job a lot easier than someone else … Obviously, the closer you are to the union, related [via family] and that, the better position you’re going to get put on. So all jobs are meant to be equal, but obviously the government jobs are the cream.”
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